


fit like a daydream

by kathillards



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo
Genre: F/M, Post Series, dealing with fame and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13570023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: Adam hears the song on the radio first. It’s her third single, and it’s called Frog Prince, because of course it is.





	fit like a daydream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mcmeekin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmeekin/gifts).



> happy valentine's day, you romance-hating bitch. here's the tanya and adam as taylor swift and harry styles fic you never wanted but are getting anyway :)

**fit like a daydream**

and i know i make the same mistakes every time  
bridges burn, i never learn  
at least i did one thing right

— _taylor swift, call it what you want_

.

“So, Tanya, tell me a little about this song you wrote—your only solo writing credit on this album, which I must say, is quite impressive, since it’s your debut.”

“Well,” she laughs, brushing her curls out of her eyes. “It was a process, getting it through my writing team and producers and managers, but it meant a lot to me and I wanted it on my album—if not this one, I would’ve put it on another one.”

“It’s a beautiful song, really,” the interviewer agrees. “I never would’ve thought anyone could make a teenage crush sound so epic and almost… magical? You must’ve had quite the experience in high school.”

Her smile turns secretive. “I really did. Those were some of the best years of my life. I thought it was only fitting to memorialize them in this album, with this song about—one of the people who meant the most to me, back then.”

The interview leans forward, curious. “Does he still mean a lot to you?”

“Oh,” Tanya sighs, and the glitter of her yellow nails catches the light of the tv studio. “He always will. Some people just never go away.”

.

Adam hears the song on the radio first. It’s her third single, and it’s called Frog Prince, because of course it is, and his hand smacks the volume dial of his car’s radio as soon as he hears her name, without him even really thinking about it.

Her voice croons soft and slow, the pop-rhythm-and-blues crossover that mainstream music has been waiting for. She sings about a boy who didn’t know his own worth, about the light she saw in him, bright like a crystal. About how he was always a prince, deep down, even when he couldn’t see it in himself.

It’s a little on the nose. Adam clicks off the radio and calls her.

.

“Track four?” Despite his intended tone, amusement lingers in his voice. “Really?”

“What other number was I supposed to use?” Tanya laughs and leans back in her plane seat. “You’ll always be four. I’ll always be two.”

Adam twists his wrist, a whole continent away, imagines something heavier on it. “I can’t believe your studio let you put it on there.”

“It’s a good song!” she defends. “They did make some changes.”

“Like what?”

“Originally, I had a line about being a superhero and they said it ‘didn’t fit the theme of the song.’”

“Can’t imagine what a line about superheroes has to do with your song about being a superhero in high school,” he says dryly, can almost picture her rolling her eyes.

“I have another song I’m working on for the next one. It’s about secrets.”

“Will it be track four?”

“No.” Tanya smiles. “Track two.”

.

It takes her a while to finish her second album, but she sends him a demo of track two, entitled ‘Secret Lights’, and of track four, entitled ‘Lion King’.

“People are gonna notice,” he points out, stretched lazily across her hotel bed. “If track four always has to do with the same guy.”

Tanya looks up from opening out her tightly-held hairdo of the day. “They don’t know your name. You aren’t famous.”

“More’s the pity,” Adam says, and throws an arm over his eyes. “You’re getting big, though. I keep expecting the paps to snap me coming out of this hotel.”

“They’ll never know you were here,” she promises him, smiling in the mirror. “My secret prince.”

.

Rocky tosses the tabloid magazine at him on his way into Adam’s apartment, not even bothering to take off his shoes before he collapses on the worn-out couch. Adam stares at the magazine, then at his best friend pointedly.

“You’re in there,” Rocky says in answer. Adam stares at him more and he sighs and kicks off his shoes. “What? You don’t have any carpet in here.”

“Because I can’t afford carpet,” says Adam absently, flicking through the magazine. “Why am I in here?”

“Someone got a picture of you walking out of Tanya’s hotel and stalked you down. Weirdly creepy, too. They got your name, age, the fact that you went to Angel Grove with her… not much else, but that’s enough for them, you know.”

“Yeah, any more and they would’ve found out we were power rangers,” Adam says. Rocky grins at him. He gets to the article and skims over it—they do have his name and age right, but nonetheless label him ‘Tanya Sloan’s Mystery Man’.

“I suppose,” he says finally, closing the magazine and tossing it back to Rocky, “there are worse things to be known for.”

“You’re okay with this?” Rocky asks, studying him carefully. “I know you guys have kept this secret for, like, years, because she didn’t want the paps to go after you…”

“What are they gonna find?” Adam says with a shrug. “If they haven’t found out she’s a ranger yet, they’re certainly not gonna be able to find it out from me. And the rest of it… they can speculate all they want.”

“It’s your relationship,” says Rocky, uncertain.

“Yeah.” Adam sinks into his favorite armchair and wonders when the last time he’d seen Tanya was… probably the very night they’d snapped him coming out of the hotel. “But she’s famous.”

.

By the time, the second album has come out, they’ve broken up. Adam finds it kind of ironic, listening to the CD in his beat-up old car as he travels around California searching for monsters to fight, to make him feel something, anything.

Over the car systems, Tanya sings softly and sweetly about the king of her heart, who was fierce and protective and always yearning for more. How he had the hunt in his blood, constantly on the prowl.

He supposes she’s right. He’d put on that broken morpher because he ached for the rush, the adrenaline, the feeling of knowing he was worth something, worth more than just a boy from Stone Canyon who was good at karate.

In her album notes, underneath the lyrics to the song, she’s written a message: _Wherever you are, I hope you find what you’re looking for._

Adam parks the car on the side of the road and rests his head on the steering wheel. He hasn’t found it. Whatever he’s looking for, it’s probably with her.

.

“You know, Tanya’s coming out with a new album,” Kat says lightly over morning coffee, as if the name ‘Tanya’ is equivalent to any other pop star out there right now. “She’s really hoping for that Grammy this time.”

“Is she?” Adam looks up from the book he wasn’t reading. “Good for her.”

“Oh, come off it.” Kat picks up her coffee mug and comes over to the couch to scoot his legs aside. “You guys seriously haven’t talked since her last album came out? It’s been two years.”

“I’ve been busy,” he protests. “There’s the dojo.”

“Jason and Rocky’s dojo, that you teach classes at once a week before disappearing?” Kat flicks him on the side of the head. “I know you’re out there fighting monsters. It’s not healthy, Adam.”

“We have never been healthy,” he grumbles. “Look at you, dancing till your feet fall off. You think if you keep busy enough, you’ll forget about it all?”

Kat’s blue eyes go cold. “There’s nothing to forget about.”

“Did you hear her song for you, on the last album?” Adam demands. “Track number one, for Zeo Ranger One? It was called ‘Ballerina.’”

“It was about her… and the fame, and—”

“It wasn’t,” Adam says. “It was about you and how you try so hard, you’re going to kill yourself from wanting to be enough.”

Kat gets to her feet and leaves. Her coffee spills over and stains his carpet brown.

.

He goes to her concert in Angel Grove. He’s been to her tours before, but never without her knowing he was there. He gets a second-row seat, thinks she’s filling out stadiums now so she won’t even see him.

She sees him. One of her people comes up to him and asks him quietly to come backstage after the show. In her dressing room, she’s pacing in a sparkling yellow gown she’d worn for her final, bombastic R&B number.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her.

“Why are you here?” Tanya asks, and her eyes look tired like she’s done ten concerts in one night. Maybe she has.

“Is it a crime for me to go to a concert of my favorite artist?”

“It is when you haven’t texted me back in four months.”

Adam takes a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“Why would I be disappointed in you?” she asks, heels clicking on the floor as she takes a step forward. Her fingers come up to brush his curls away from his cheek. “What did you do?”

“I know you wanted me to stop… stop fighting, stop running. And I haven’t. And I don’t think I can.”

“Adam…”

“I’m not asking you for anything,” he says quietly. “I want you to be happy and I don’t want you in this with me. I just didn’t want you to go on stage every night and sing about me without knowing the truth.”

Tanya tilts her head, her long, elaborately-styled curls falling over her shoulders. “What’s the truth, Adam?” In the soft, yellow lights of her dressing room, she seems so much more fragile than the goddess she had been on stage.

“I can’t… give up my life for you. And you can’t give up yours for me.” Adam swallows. “But I love you.”

“I love you too.” It might be worse that she says this with no hesitation. “I always will.”

He nods and turns to take his leave, but she stops him with a hand to his cheek. When she kisses him, her mouth tastes like he’d never stopped kissing her, warm and soft and familiar in all the best and worst and most aching, dizzying of ways.

.

Tommy calls him from university or wherever the fuck he is now. “So, is this like a thing?”

Adam stares down at his burned pancakes. “What’s a thing?”

“You and Tanya,” says Tommy, with no regard for Adam’s failed cooking on the other end of the phone. “Apparently you’re back together?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“It’s all over the gossip sites.”

“You _read_ those?”

“No,” Tommy says defensively. “I _hear_ about them. From other students. You know Tanya’s a huge star, right? Everyone knows her… and they all want to know about her mystery frog prince or whatever.”

Adam sighs. “It’s not a thing. We’re not back together, we’re just…”

“Just what?” Tommy presses. “Just fucking?”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“I think I do,” and now he’s gone into his leader voice, so Adam’s doomed. “Look… I know it’s hard for you guys. But this can’t be healthy.”

“Of course it’s not healthy!” Adam explodes. “There’s no way to date a celebrity and have it be healthy!”

“That’s not— _Adam_ ,” says Tommy, clearly sensing him starting to pace. “You and Tanya were _the_ healthiest relationship any of us had in high school. More than me and Kat, me and Kim, Jason and Emily… you guys were the gold standard. Whatever you’re doing right now isn’t _you_.”

“Tommy,” Adam says slowly. “Two weeks ago I was in Colorado and I found a demon. Ran away from Mariner Bay. And I killed it. And that’s my life. That’s my _whole_ life. And Tanya’s life is being famous.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Tommy tries. “You can—you can do anything, Adam. You know you can.”

“Yeah.” Adam resists the urge to roll his eyes. “But we can’t all get degrees in five years flat, Tommy. And don’t you think… don’t you think we’ll never really be able to do anything as important as that, ever again?”

Tommy is silent for a few minutes. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I don’t know if what I do here will be important. But… does it have to be, to mean something? What if—”

Adam hangs up.

.

“Who’s the new guy?” he asks, leaning against the doorway to her hotel room. Tanya looks up from her songwriting notebook and frowns at him.

“What new guy?”

“You know, that handsome, charismatic actor from that new superhero movie that you’re dating and possibly are secretly married to already?”

She rolls her eyes and beckons for him to close the door. “Don’t be stupid. If I were dating someone handsome and charismatic, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

“Ouch.” Adam grins at her and bends his head to kiss her. “Why do they think you’re dating then?”

“Because they’re tired of not knowing anything about you. And because I’m doing a song for his new movie.”

“Boring,” he hums against her lips. “Everyone knows real romance is only found when you’re power rangers together.”

Tanya laughs. “I swear, I’ve used superhero metaphors for half my last album and they never picked up on it.”

“People are stupid.”

“Yeah.” She sighs and lays a hand on his chest, gently pushing him away from the kiss. “But we should talk.”

Whenever any of his teammates says that, it’s usually about his extracurricular activities, so Adam says, preemptively, “I’m taking classes, I’m gonna get my Master’s—”

“I know,” Tanya says with a smile, equal parts sad and fond. “I know you are, but you’re still… out there, aren’t you? Still fighting.”

“I have to,” he says. “I… I don’t know any other way to be.”

.

He doesn’t tell her about Thrax and Overdrive and the new team, when he goes. In the back of his head, he thinks maybe he should—if not her, then Rocky, or Kat, or even Tommy—and watches Kira texting her teammates and Xander excitedly on the phone with his and thinks—

He doesn’t know how to be better.

“Hey,” Tori says, but when he looks up, she’s talking to Kira, “Did _you_ know Tanya Sloan was a power ranger?”

“Yeah, Dr. O made us a video diary,” Kira says, and her eyes slide to Adam for half a second. “You just found out?”

“Well, I was reading these files Hartford has on us.” Tori spins to face him. “She was your teammate?”

“Um.”

Kira snorts. “She’s his _girlfriend_.”

“Um,” says Adam, more insistently. “We don’t need to do this.”

“You’re _dating_ Tanya Sloan?” Tori demands. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“Yeah, how _do_ you know that?” Adam asks Kira.

She shrugs. “Ethan hacked Dr. O’s email once. He and the others discuss you two… sometimes. A lot.”

Adam stares at her, offended. “How much is a lot?”

“They just worry about you, because you can’t be seen in public with her or the paparazzi will get you.” Kira walks by and pats his arm sympathetically. “It must suck. I’m not that famous, but sometimes I still worry about going out with Trent.”

Adam shakes his head. “It’s not that. I mean… it’s not _just_ that.”

“Is it because she’s the biggest pop-r&b star of the decade?” Bridge pipes up from behind them. All three of them turn around to look at him and Xander. “Oh, oops, maybe you’re not supposed to know that yet.”

“How big is big?” Tori asks.

Bridge spreads his arms out wide enough to smack Xander in the face. “ _Really_ big. But she never gets—uh, never mind.”

Adam has a sinking, terrible feeling that Bridge was about to say the word _married_.

.

She wins the Album of the Year Grammy for her fourth album, after years of snubs, and he’s not there because he’s in Stone Canyon fighting a monster that crash-landed from the remains of the Alliance of Evil.

Aisha calls him and says, “You think maybe you should go see her?”

Adam rubs at his dislocated shoulder. “Yeah, I will, I just…”

She sighs deeply, in that way all of his teammates have done at some point or the other around him. “Stop running so much, Adam.”

He thinks this is pretty rich, coming from the girl who gave up her Zeo crystal to run away to Africa. “Just because I’m not doing this the easy way, like Tommy did, doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.”

“There’s nothing easy about being a Ranger,” she snaps. “And what you’re doing might be worthwhile, but is it worth it for you?”

“You don’t get it.”

“No, I don’t,” Aisha says sharply. “You’re killing yourself. Do you really think you won’t ever be more than what you were in high school?”

Adam thinks of Tanya, her star on the Walk of Fame, soaring higher and higher, far beyond his ability to catch up. He twists his shoulder back into place with only a mild wince and says, “Yeah, I do. Because we might do good things now, but we’ll never be superheroes again.”

.

His apartment is falling apart, but his bed is still comfortable when he collapses in it, running his power coin over and over in his hands, marveling at how it had been so full of power just a short while ago.

He almost doesn’t notice the door to his bedroom open, and if it were anyone but her, he would curse himself for not being more aware, ready to fight.

Tanya crosses the room to sit at his side. “I heard you were in the papers instead of me for once.”

Adam laughs, dry and tired. “Was I?”

She offers him her phone so he can read the article on the Operation Overdrive team-up himself. They think the original black ranger is back in action. There’s a whole paragraph wondering where Bridge came from. Someone in the comments is discussing whether this means the Overdrive rangers are failures.

“I have a new song,” Tanya tells him when he gives her phone back. “Wanna hear it?”

He smiles at her. “Don’t I always?”

She pulls out her songwriting notebook from her purse and flips it open to the right page, clears her throat and begins to sing. Adam peers over her shoulder and finds the song is titled ‘St. Patrick’s Day.’

“Why St. Patrick’s Day?” he asks when she finishes the second verse, the rest of the song still unwritten except in scribbled ideas.

Tanya shrugs and smiles. “Because it’s green. I’m trying to be subtle here, you know. My other albums already ate up a lot of my superhero metaphors.”

“Track four?” he asks.

“I was thinking it would be a bonus track,” she admits, tracing a finger down the page. “It’s about wanting someone to come home for the holidays, for all the holidays. But for each one… he has a new excuse.”

Adam can’t figure out how to apologize for it, so instead he asks, weakly, “What’s track four gonna be then?”

“You’ll have to buy the album to find out,” Tanya says. “Adam, do you think… maybe you should go to therapy?”

He snorts. “What kind of therapist would believe any of the shit that’s happened to me?”

“You don’t have to tell the whole truth, it’s just… look, Trini went. And Tommy, and Jason, and Kat. And probably the others too. It might not be the best way with people like us… but it helps. I have a therapist.”

“Because you’re famous,” he says. “And you can afford it.”

“I’ll pay—”

“That’s not the point.” Adam sighs, running a hand over his face. “Look, I’ll—I can try. But I don’t think therapy can help you much if you’re hiding so much of yourself from the therapist.”

Tanya reaches up and brushes his hair out of his eyes. “What if you could talk to someone who was in on the secret? I know Tommy’s friend Hayley has a psychology degree.”

Adam looks at her skeptically. “It takes more than a psychology degree to be a therapist.”

“I know, but… isn’t it a start?”

.

Track four of her fifth album is titled ‘Twice Upon a Time.’ It’s about new beginnings, and trying again, and starting over. How love at first sight is only step one in a fairytale. It goes to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 pretty quickly.

Hayley plays it for him in one of his pseudo-sessions. She doesn’t charge, he only comes when she’s not busy with her café. But her couch is pretty comfortable, so he keeps coming back.

“How does the song make you feel?” She has her notebook in her lap, although he knows for a fact that she mostly just doodles in there. Every once in a while, though, she’ll pull out something he said five sessions ago just to show him how much he’s improved.

“Good, I think,” Adam says, stretching out on her sofa like a cat. “Hopeful. I talked to her a few nights ago… she has her tour coming up but she said we could meet up before it starts. And after that… who knows?”

“Well, you’re not going out and doing suicide missions anymore,” Hayley remarks. “So that’ll probably be good for you guys in the long run.”

“The long run,” Adam repeats absently. “I haven’t even thought about that in… forever.”

“Generally, it’s something people avoid thinking about, especially when they don’t think they have much to live for,” Hayley says. “That’s what people struggling with depression need help with, finding a way to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Adam can’t help but think that that would be a great song.

.

She wins her second Album of the Year Grammy for her fifth album and he’s there this time, waiting at her penthouse apartment with Kat and Aisha and Rocky and Hayley and Tommy, all with bottles of champagne and balloons to congratulate her.

“This would’ve been a pretty sad scene if I lost, huh?” Tanya remarks, smiling up at him as she tugs a loose piece of confetti out of his curls.

“Please. Like they wouldn’t give you every Grammy ever,” he says with a snort. “You’re the biggest pop-r&b star of the decade, as I’ve been told.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tanya says with a laugh, but she reaches up and kisses him anyway. “Who told you that?”

“Better if you don’t know,” Adam tells her sagely.

Tanya smiles and presses a hand to his chest, right over his heartbeat. “You know I’m proud of you, too, right? With the therapy, and the Master’s degree…”

Adam leans his forehead against hers. “I’m not gonna stop fighting,” he says carefully. “Not completely. I know it’s not—the safest thing, but it’s what I do, it’s what I…”

“I know,” she says simply. “It’s not something that needs to be fixed. I just want you to be around for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Long enough to marry me?”

Adam blinks down at her and wonders if maybe the future can be changed or maybe—maybe nothing’s ever really set in stone in the first place. Or maybe Bridge had been about to say something else, or maybe he’d been hearing his own demons instead that day.

“Only if I get more songs out of it,” he tells her, and Tanya laughs and lets him sweep her up into a kiss while their friends cheer in the living room. It’s not the end of the road, but it’s a ways down from the tunnel, at the very least.


End file.
